TiPb Picks of the Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Alli's and Brian's pick: Skype

Alli: Skype recently updated its iOS app to include the ability to video chat over 3G. While video over 3G is mediocre, video over WiFi is great. I've found that lately I'm using Skype on my iPhone more often than Skype on my desktop.

Skype was even able to come to my rescue recently, when I had no voice or data with AT&T at the Cincinnati airport. Once the plane was at cruising altitude and the captain turned on WiFi, I was able to use Skype to send an sms to my parents to let them know where I was.

Brian: Skype may not be the newest application around but it is for sure my Pick of the Week. With it's latest update they have finally enabled video calling from your iOS device and it is a much welcomed feature. Most of my friends and family from back home don't have an iPhone 4 so video chatting for them to talk to my daughter or to see your truly wasn't possible with my phone. That being the case I hardly ever used my front facing camera. Well now that Skype allows video calls I have found myself using my front camera at least once per day to talk to the folks or other friends and family members. So if you haven't updated yet or don't have the Skype app yet it is well worth the download!

Ally's pick: Tapatalk

I love browsing forums, especially interacting with members of the TiPb forums. Sometimes work and other things keep me away from a computer and browsing forums on a mobile device has not always been the best experience.

Tapatalk sets out to solve that. As long as the forum supports the plug-in, you'll be good to go. I've noticed more and more forums adding Tapatalk support every day. It's extremely fast (even over AT&T Edge for you poor saps like me that live in an area where 3G is severely lacking).

It even supports moderator accounts. I love the fact that if I need to quickly moderate, I can do so from my device just as easily as I can from a computer now. If you're a heavy forum user, it's definitely worth checking out!

Chris O’s pick: The Sun

The Sun is a national tabloid Newspaper in the United Kingdom and there is now an official iPad app. The app comes with a 30 day free trial with no need to sign up, so it is well worth taking a free look.

The newspaper does not have the best reputation, but does do a good job covering sporting events. One of the great features however, for many of The Sun readers, is the page 3 girl. Basically a topless model adorns page 3 every day of the week (except Sundays). The app for iPad goes a little further and offers the page 3 girl in a 360 degree view. You can swipe to rotate the picture right round.

The app is free to download and once you fire it up, it downloads the day’s paper when you click on it, shame it is not automatic! Well worth a look, to keep abreast of the latest news and sport.

George's pick: Paperless

Paperless is an outstanding, unique list making app.

You have the choice whether you want to make a ‘checklist’ or a simple ‘list’.
Checklists are great for to-do lists and shopping lists, and the ‘lists’ are great for leaving yourself notes, like quotes or ideas.

What makes Paperless great, is that it includes over 300 custom made icons and 5 themes, that make your lists eye-catching, unlike traditional checklist apps, which just show text, which can be boring.

Selected lists can be shown as a ‘bubble’ on your home screen, so you have a realistic look on all the selected, important, things you have to do, instead of everything at once.

While not supporting ‘cloud’ storage. You can send yourself an email backup of your lists, so if you lose your phone or delete the app, you can always re download the lists.

Leanna's pick: iTouch Gloves

While at Macworld 2010, Rene and I checked out iTouch Gloves - leather gloves that work with the capacitive screen of the iPhone and iPad. I finally got a pair for Christmas this year and love them!

The iTouch Gloves look like normal leather gloves but work wonderfully with my iPhone and iPad. They are much warmer than I was expecting. I had also expected typing on the iPhone's small keyboard to be difficult, but not so! I do have to type a little slower to prevent mistakes, but I'm still remarkably accurate considering I'm wearing gloves.

Rene's pick: mophie juice pack

Whenever I attend a trade show, like CES 2011 this week, my iPhone 4 battery gets hit like a freight train. First I use my iPhone so much because I'm constantly on the go, recording media, keeping up on Twitter, and -- oh ya! -- checking up on TiPb.com from the road and the show floor. Second, these shows are flooded with iPhones making AT&T's sometimes tenuous service into a full on disaster-- my iPhone radio has to fire so hard, so often, I can literally watch the battery drain from the time I unplug until the time I finish breakfast.

So, as usual, I brought 2 mophie juice packs with me, this time for iPhone 4 and both the juice pack air and the juice pack plus. The air got me back to 75% or so, the plus to full charge. I typically went through both every day and that's literally the difference between me getting the job done for TiPb or being left high and dry with a dead phone.

Air is $79, plus is $99. Both are well worth it for road warriors or anyone else who just can't -- or won't -- put their iPhone down.

[]Mophie](http://www.mophie.com)]

Your pick?

You’re part of the team as well, so jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

I've owned 3 mophie juice packs (for iphone 3g/3gs), two juice pack airs (for 3g/3gs), and 1 juice pack plus for iphone4.
ALL OF THEM WERE DEFECTIVE except for one juice pack (that I didn't use for very long because the juicepack air came out).
Their product quality is garbage.
I've had my juice pack plus for my iphone4 less than a month.
There is something wrong with the way they build the little usb connectors into the battery packs. they just stop charging after a while.
Their customer service is also garbage also. With your product failing this frequently why should I have to go out of my way to RMA a product and send it back to you (5 times????) before you will send me another one.